CUSTOMS OF THE SERVICE.

I.

The old ‘com.’ fairly caught me out at the ‘prelim.’ We had a general knowledge paper set—a fairly easy thing. I finished mine in about half-an-hour; then, getting bored waiting for Beefy, I started to write some skittish answers for my own amusement. Beefy, who is a practical joker, got hold of these, and when we were asked to pass our papers up, substituted the wretched things for my real answers. Just to show you how I put my foot in it, here are samples of the silly tripe I concocted.

(Q.) What is meant by strategy? (A.) Giving a fellow a thick ear—suddenly.

(Q.) Explain the term Tactics. (A.) Correct handling of a platoon when passing a brewery.

(Q.) What is an outpost? (A.) A military mortuary.

(Q.) What is meant by camouflage? (A.) Wearing a Burberry to hide a hole in your pants.

(Q.) Who is Allenby? (A.) The fellow who didn’t make a mess of Gaza.

(Q.) What should an officer always say to the men? (A.) ‘Get your hair cut.’

Now, just imagine what the old ‘com.’ thought of me when he went through this piffle. I was in a blue funk. To make matters worse, it was Saturday and leave-day. Adela had got her mother and father off to a Red Cross bazaar, and she had engaged the drawing-room for us—all to ourselves. Beefy and her sister had commandeered the dining-room. This heavenly prospect was damped by a terrible cloud.

‘Cheer up, John Brown,’ said Beefy.

‘That’s all jolly fine, Beefy. You’ve let me down, and if I get chucked out, it’s all your fault.’

‘You’re a ruddy pessimist. The old colonel is a sport. He’ll be tickled to death. Of course, he will probably have you up, make a hellifa fuss, &c.; but when you go out he’ll burst with laughter. You have got no humour, you silly ass. And you forget that the old chap used to do things at Sandhurst. Hang it all! it’s only a rag; and if there’s trouble, John, I’ll own up. I’m not a sneak.’

‘Fall in for lecture,’ shouted the C.S.M. ‘And, I say,’ he added.

‘What, sergeant-major?’

‘Is John Brown here?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re for orderly-room after the lecture. Make your will out. You’re going to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.’

‘Right-o!’ I answered, making the best of a bad job.

II.

We then marched away to the lecture-hall to hear the adjutant on his favourite topic—’Customs of the Service.’ He was not a bad lecturer, and quite funny at times. We called him ‘BlasÉ Percy.’ He had been at Mons, the Marne, and Ypres. Half his nose was off; he had a glass eye, a dummy hand, a silver plate in his tummy, and a game leg. Poor chap! no wonder he was blasÉ. For all that, he was a sport, and had the Legion of Honour.

‘Now, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘when you’ve finished wiping your feet on the tables, I’ll start. You’ve got to go through it, so don’t go to sleep. My lecture is “The Customs of the Service.” When you leave here you will have commissions. And when you join your regiments, try to do “the correct thing.” Don’t lurch into your new battalion like an actor-manager looking for trouble. Slide in quietly, just like a little dawg. If you’re not humble by nature, look as humble as you can. When reporting to the adjutant, don’t have a woodbine between your lips and your hands in your pockets. He will eat you alive. When I was a sub. I saved myself an awful lot of trouble by cutting the English Dictionary down to two words—“Yes, sir.” If you’re not brainy, that’s quite a good scheme. The adjutant will mark you down as decent and harmless, and the men won’t know. Of course, this beastly war has upset our easy old system. You’ve got to be intelligent to please the newspapers. It’s a bit of a bore, but the best people are trying to do it, and it’s good to be in the fashion. At the same time, it isn’t the correct thing to argue the point with majors and colonels. They are big-bugs in the military scheme, and should an old gentleman announce in the anteroom that Macedonia is in Texas, or that Florrie Forde is the wife of President Wilson, don’t call him a liar. You will make him unhappy, and when he gets you on parade, he’ll most likely twist your tail. Use your brains, certainly; but don’t advertise them—that’s bad form.

‘A man is judged by little things, and it is very easy to discover a man’s temperament and schooling. For example, in one battalion to which I was attached, a gorgeous youth barged in and presented his card to the adjutant as if he were a commercial traveller. Mark you, he was only joining his battalion that day; but the adjutant was amused to read the following:

‘Now, that visiting-card was all right for “The Bing Boys,” but it was no good for an officer of His Majesty’s Service. I agree it wouldn’t prevent our going on with the war. And I am glad to say it was no indication of the real ability of dear old Ted, as he turned out to be. But officers are officers. We control the actions of millions of men, and it’s not at all a bad thing to make the British Army a school for etiquette and good manners. Ted, I may tell you, was an advertising agent in civil life. He simply couldn’t help getting that card printed. From his telegraphic address you will observe he was a hustler, and we can do with lots of men like him. However, the adjutant handed him over to me, and I got him to dump his one thousand gold-edged, red-lettered visiting-cards into the ashpit, and gave him a bit of pasteboard like this:

‘Thus was he shorn of all his gilt, his Esq., his Red Villa, Tooting, tel. address, and all the fripperies of Suburbia. No officer requires a brass band or a newspaper poster to announce his commission or importance. The uniform is good enough, and it’s a mighty good kit, too. Ted was such a good fellow, so willing, so generous, and afterwards so brave that we adopted him as a regimental mascot. He’s now a captain, a D.S.O. And what do you think that devil Ted is going to do next week?’

‘What, sir?’ I asked.

‘He’s going to marry my sister.’

‘Hear, hear!’

‘My sister, I may tell you, is a jolly good-looking gel—so is Ted good-looking—and when she asked my benediction, I wired: “God bless you, Red Villa and all.”

‘Another point. Don’t start attempting to tip adjutants and colonels. You may be very rich, and imagine that if you send me a gold cigar-case studded with diamonds I shall pass you out for your commission. Personally, I should have no hesitation in court-martialling a man who did so. I recall a youth named Solomon M’Isaaks, who blew in from the Argentine. Out there he had to deal with grafters and twisters. To get business he had to give palm-oil by the gallon. He was not at all a desirable fellow. He wanted short cuts to success, and didn’t like the daily grind of orderly officer, drill, marching, &c. Somehow or other he suddenly conceived the idea that by patronage he might buy a colonelcy or a brigadier’s job. So he started to throw fivers about like hot peas, and ended up by sending a cheque to a brigade major. That finished him. He was booted out. If there is one thing we ought to be proud of, it is that the British Army has not the graft of South America. Merit counts, although I’m just afraid a sneak soft-soaps his way occasionally by acting the part of Uriah Heap.

‘I may also tell you there are hundreds of little things you have got to know. For example, when the commanding officer enters the anteroom every officer must promptly rise to attention—as a mark of respect. Colonels do not insist on this from mere vanity. It is really discipline, and as all of you may be colonels some day, you will realise the benefit of the system. Another custom is, when you meet the C.O., the major, or the adjutant in the morning, salute smartly, and say, “Good-morning, sir.” If the C.O. had occasion the day before to reprimand you for some error, make a point of saying a cheerful “Good-morning,” and he will then know that you are no petty-minded individual.

‘Remember your table manners. For dinner assemble in the anteroom five minutes before the time. Allow the C.O. and seniors to lead the way to the table, and take your seats quietly. Don’t eat with your knife; and when you finish a course, put your knife and fork together. When a mess servant sees a new officer leave his knife and fork sprawling all over the plate he says nothing—but he thinks a lot. He really believes the delinquent is not a gentleman. And it is most important that officers should convey to all ranks that they have a knowledge of the courtesies which are the hall-mark of all well-trained people.

‘Of course, you may say, “What has all this got to do with winning the war?” My reply is, it is the whole scheme. For example, the German officer is quite a brave man, but he is not a gentleman. His manners to the German soldiers are the manners of a brute. He never uses “please,” seldom “thanks;” while Faith, Hope, and Charity are absent from his curriculum. His whole life is based on brute-power, the penal code, and—orders. What a difference from the British Army! Our discipline is the firmest, yet the kindest, in the world, simply because cadets and all officers have had their noses shoved on the grindstone by sergeant-majors, lecturers, and seniors, who insist that if you fail in your duty, and neglect to cultivate the love and the friendship of your men, then you are absolutely no use to the British Army.

‘Again, when you want to leave the mess table before the mess president does so, you must go and ask his permission. On a guest-night you must not leave the room, except on a point of duty; and you should remain with the guests of the evening till they go.

‘Here are a few more hints in brief, which I call the Subaltern’s Ten Commandments.

‘(1) Thou shalt drink soda-water.

‘(2) Thou shalt not wear pink socks or yellow shoes, or carry Mills grenades on leave with the pin half-out.

‘(3) Thou shalt not address generals as “Dear old Charlie.”

‘(4) Thou shalt not kiss V.A.D.’s—in public.

‘(5) Thou shalt aspire to the V.C.—if thou cannot become an R.T.O.

‘(6) Thou shalt smile, even when thy calf has “stopped one.”

‘(7) Thou shalt permit the men to sing, dance, and be merry, for on the morrow they may die.

‘(8) Thou shalt covet the Kaiser’s blood, his ox, and his ass, and everything that is the Kaiser’s.

‘(9) Thou shalt be chivalrous.

‘(10) Honour thy King and serve thy Motherland, that thy labours may gain unto thee three pips and a D.S.O.

‘I think that is all just now, gentlemen,’ concluded the adjutant. ‘Fall out, please.’

III.

At other times this most excellent lecture would have cheered me up, but the coming ordeal made me tremble, and I shuffled to the orderly-room with a heavy, heavy heart. I wasn’t worrying so much about what the ‘Old Man’ was going to say; it was the thought of my leave’s being ruthlessly cancelled that made me sick of life. Adela—alone in the drawing-room—waiting for me. To be denied that hour of crowded life seemed like cutting the legs off a race-horse.

As I passed the orderly-room I saw the commandant had a fierce and livery look, for it was a raw, wet morning.

‘Quick march—right wheel—left wheel—halt!—Hands back!—John Brown, sir,’ announced the sergeant-major.

The ‘com.’ looked up. His eyes were sparkling fire, his moustache was like that of a walrus, his cheeks were puffed with wrath, and his neck was red. He struck terror into my soul, and I quaked like a schoolboy. I didn’t know, of course, that this was the official orderly-room manner, specially cultivated by ancient mandarins to impress all tyros with the majesty of military law.

‘Well, young man,’ he blurted out, ‘I have seen your effusion. It’s all right for Comic Cuts, but it’s a personal affront to me. Do you think the army and the war a cock-eyed revue for flippant cadets to throw their mocking tosh’——

‘Really, sir, I’m—I’m’——

‘Silence, d—— you! You, a future officer, get an examination-paper given you, and you deliberately sit down and turn it into a music-hall farce. It’s outrageous! It’s a scandal! You’re a disgrace! When I commanded the Fuzzy-Wuzzy Camel Corps I would have shot an officer for such an offence. Do you realise the enormity of your crime? It’s almost treason. Under the Manual of Military Law I can do anything with you for this. And if I were the C.I.C. I might order you to be strung up by the thumbs. What do you mean, sah? What the devil do you mean, sah?’ he concluded, stabbing the blotting-paper with a pen and making it break into a thousand fragments.

It was impressive—awe-inspiring! I felt like a worm between two stones. I am five feet ten inches, but at the moment I seemed no higher than a grease-spot.

‘Please, sir, I’——

‘“Please” be d——! Speak like a soldier.’

‘I did two papers, sir—the correct one and this one. Unfortunately this silly one was sent up. I did it for my own amusement. I’m most awfully sorry, sir.’

‘You’re most awfully sorry, are you? Where is the proper paper, then?’ he roared.

‘Here, sir,’ I said, handing it over.

His eye quickly scanned it over. ‘Humph! saves your bacon, my lad. I was preparing to heave you out, bag and baggage. However, you’re a youngster. I’ve got boys of my own. I’ll give you a chance. Come again and you’ll be shot! Now, are you due for leave to-day?’

‘I hope you won’t stop it, sir. I’ve an important engagement with a tailor about my uniform.’

‘Did you say a tailor or—a lady?’ he inquired, looking deep into my eyes.

‘A—lady, sir.’

‘Well, I have no desire that an innocent person should suffer for your misdeeds. You can have your leave. But never come here again—John Brown.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

I was marched out. As the orderly-room closed I heard the ‘Old Man’ burst into laughter, and say to the adjutant, ‘By Jove! we put the wind up that young bounder.’

‘Yes, sir,’ replied the adjutant.